What they said: Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn

Lots of good stuff today from Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn when he held his weekly meeting with the media. Here’s much of what he said:

On defending Adrian Peterson: “Yeah what a terrific player and all of us hold him in high regard and as everybody around the league does. Style, in terms of physical and effort and those are the kind of things that really jump out the most to you on tape, the running style and the physical way that he plays. So great challenge to us and one that we’re looking forward to.”

On if it’s useful for him to look at last year’s game against the Vikings to prepare to play Adrian Peterson: “Yeah it definitely was. That was certainly one of the things that we do and anytime that you have the common opponent or a play from last year or recently, it’s always one that we go back on. So yeah for sure we do.”

On if it’s harder to defend a run-style offense that features a hard-nosed runner like Adrian Peterson or Marshawn Lynch: “I think, maybe from my old defensive line background, I think that every week. But no, I think just they’re really committed to it and sometimes you even heard me say that, in terms of a really committed running team. That means the whole game and he’s certainly one with that running that you want to do.”

On if the adjustments to stopping the run last year is the same this year: “I think to be honest; I think we really just did a better job in the last week of just hitting our fits and really playing more aggressive. I hope the tape showed that, in terms of the style that we wanted to play. That was one of the things we talked about most. When we met last week here, we kind of talked about… there wasn’t any wholesale changes, more of the mind set and the attitude of the style that we wanted to play. I think that came through in the tape and we need to stay committed to that and that’s our style and that’s what we do best. So we’ll do that.”

On how he would prepare the defense to play against an impact player such as Harvin: “Think just the style that you play, in terms of how you matchup whether it’s man-to-man or zone or who plays on him and that kind of thing. So that’s one of the awesome parts about these guys playing for us, coaching in the NFL is every team and all of the match ups that you have every week. And sometimes it’s a tight end, sometimes a receiver, sometimes it’s a running back, and it’s really one of the challenges about coaching that you love the most.”

On Thurmond’s and Maxwell’s performance in Atlanta: “The main thing we knew going in at that position, we certainly have some depth. So when Brandon [Browner] went down, all of us have confidence in Walt [Walter Thurmond] and Max [Byron Maxwell] to go in the game. So we’ve seen those guys play this year at different points in time, through their whole preseason, and then every day in practice. So our confidence in those men were very high and so we were certainly not surprised in the results of them playing well.”

On Sherman’s ability to recognize formations: “I think it starts really with the early part of the week with Kris [Richard] and then even with the common opponents, I heard that one from Sherm [Richard Sherman], this is something they did from last year. So he does recall not just from the game plan, but even from games that happened from last year. So like his mental quickness is really right there. In the meeting room, where he was sitting next to me, he was calling out a play before it came just from a formation that happened to him in the playoff game against Atlanta from last year. So yeah, he’s really on his game.”

On if it’s unique for a corner to have that ability: “I don’t think it’s unique for them because so much is determined by like split. So some routes, you can give away by a split or an alignment of a receiver as opposed to, ‘Is he inside the numbers, outside of the numbers?’ So those are the things that pertain to that position and some of the times when we’re talking as coaches and you’re talking to the whole group, really they have to decipher, ‘What’s really important for me?’ The same thing is not as important for the corner that it is for the nose tackle, if that makes sense. So that’s kind of one of the good parts about for us coaching on defense when we’re all together. There’s all these different alerts that come up in the game and some apply to you and some apply to you as you go through and that’s kind of the whole challenge of putting it all together.”

On if he has noticed teams not throwing the ball towards Sherman: “Yeah that’s a good question. I don’t know if I know the answer. There hasn’t been a lot of shots over to his side you know, but I don’t know if it’s something that we can maybe check up on to say, ‘Each week, we are going to the alerts.’ But he’s certainly a guy that’s on top of his game.”

On the key to the success of the defense defending against the run: “I think the biggest thing that we recaptured that was… you could really see some knock-back hits and the physical style that we like to play with and I think that’s what showed through the most. Our fits were better, no doubt about it. But I like the physical element that we came into the game with and played with and I thought that was one of the things we emphasized during the week. So it was good to have that.”